June 6, 2016.
Injection of stem cells into the brain could help recover motor functions lost following a stroke, according to a preliminary trial, led by a team of researchers at Stanford University in California. .
Recover motor functions
The effects of a stroke can be extremely serious for patients. But according to American researchers, these effects could be reduced thanks to an injection of stem cells into the brain. These works, published in the journal Stroke, indeed reveal that this injection could lead to an improvement in motor deficit, without side effects.
To reach these conclusions, the doctors made a hole in the skulls of patients who had suffered a stroke, six months to three years earlier, and injected cells into the damaged brain area. These mesenchymal stem cells, obtained from the bone marrow, have the capacity to produce several types of cells belonging to skeletal tissues, such as cartilage, bone and fat.
Stem cells: paralyzed people walk again
” Patients who were in wheelchairs are walking again », Welcomed Gary Steinberg who directed these tests. How could such a miracle have been possible? According to the researcher, stem cells allowed the brain to restart tissue regeneration processes. ” These cells bring the adult brain closer to that of a newborn, which recovers much more easily », He clarified.
These trials are very promising and contradict the idea that certain sequelae are irreversible after a stroke. ” In the decades to come, regenerative medicine will bring about a revolution in many chronic pathologies », Rejoiced Doctor Olivier Detante, neurologist at the neuro-vascular unit of the CHU de Grenoble, in the columns of the World.
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